Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Calendar Crunch

My quest to be more organized has been put on hold for the day thanks to an issue caused by a calendar of all things. Not mine - one of my kids' schools. Actually, it's the calendar for all their schools. It's online, like a lot of schools have. So do many businesses, a number of venues, and quite a few clubs. People make their livings out of scheduling things, and nowadays much of it is available, and done, online.

Which is why this situation makes my head spin. An event was booked in September with one office. One would assume, with no written guidelines and no further instruction provided by those who approved the information, that the event was all set. By coincidence, an inquiry was made this week to confirm the information. Much to our horror, not only was the date never reserved for the event, another event was booked into the same venue. To hold the event, it will either have to be moved off-site at an added expense or the date will need to be changed to a month later.

I can handle all that. What I have a hard time with is this is not the first time this has happened. In talking with various offices to check on alternative dates and/or venues, similar situations have been noted. Some things make it onto the calendar and some don't. Further complicating the issue is there is a district calendar, a sports calendar (on a separate site and format), a building use calendar (available only on paper), an academic year calendar, each club has its own calendar... when trying to coordinate something, it's a constant battle to make sure you check with multiple parties despite the technology being available to eliminate much of the issue.

Who would ever think a tool to keep us organized could make things so disorganized?